Nell of Shorne Mills

"But I'm only a boy, which makes all the difference, don't you see?"

said Dick naïvely. "Nobody cares what a boy does, you know. Come along."

She pretended to eye him severely.

"No; I won't 'come along.' And I think it's very rude of you not to take

an answer."

"All right," he said cheerfully. "Then will you come and have some

supper?"

"Why, it isn't half an hour ago since we had some."

"Then come and see me eat some more," he suggested.

"Thank you; but I am never very fond of seeing animals fed, even at the

Zoo!"

"That was rather good," he said, with a grin. "My sister, Nell couldn't

have put that one in more neatly."

"Your sister Nell? That's the girl over there, dancing with Captain

White? How pretty she is!"

"Think so? Yes, she is, now you mention it. We are considered very much

alike."

The girlish laughter, which he had been waiting for, rang out, and,

taking advantage of it, Dick coaxed her into a corner on the stairs,

where they could flirt to their hearts' content.

"I wonder whether you'd be offended if I told you that you were the

jolliest--I mean nicest--girl I've met?" said the young vagabond, with

an assumption of innocence and humility which robbed the remark of any

offense--at any rate, for his hearer, whose eyes sparkled.

"Not at all. And I wonder whether you'd mind if I told you that I think

you are the rudest and most--most audacious boy I ever met?"

"Not the least in the world, because it's no news--I mean that I'm--what

was it--the rudest and most audacious? I have a sister, you know, and

she deals in candor, candor in solid blocks. But what a mission my

condition opens up before you, Miss Angel!"

"A mission?" she asked reluctantly, young enough to know that she was

going to be caught somehow.

"Yes," he said, with demure gravity. "The mission of my reformation. If

you think me so bad to-night, I don't know, I really don't, what you

would have thought of me yesterday, before I had had the advantage of

your elevating society. Now, Miss Angel, here is a chance for you--the

great chance of your life! Continue your elevating influence. Your

cousin has asked me to a rabbit shoot to-morrow."

"You'll shoot somebody. They really ought not to allow boys to carry

guns----"